Saturday, November 26, 2011

I watch a lot of French movies these days and not just because I've fallen hopelessly in love with Vanessa Paradis. Even though I've seen some English-speaking movies lately that I've really enjoyed ("Bridesmaids" was hilarious, Paul Giamatti was great (as always) in "Win Win" and I actually went to the theater and saw "Moneyball" and was not disappointed) the general level of quality in French films seems to be higher -- maybe because the real dindes don't make it to our shores.
Yesterday I watched "Home" which was about a very happy family that lived an isolated existence right beside an abandoned highway.Their idyllic lifestyle is ruined when they open that stretch of highway for traffic again. In a matter of hours there's no way for the kids to cross the street to go to school without risking their lives and they have to go way out of their way and use a tunnel even though it's "full of creepies" according to youngest daughter Marion. The poor cat, who's probably never seen a car is strangling himself tied to the clothesline pole. And everybody starts to go a little crazy.

All Judith the oldest daughter ever wanted to do was sunbathe, chain smoke and listen to horrible French death metal music. Hard to do when truck drivers are honking at you every few seconds. Marion counts cars and is convinced that every mosquito bite is a cancerous lesion. The youngest kid, a boy, goes into a depression cuz the few friends he had around there all had sense enough to move. Mom may suffer the worst but she's the reason they can't leave. There's something unsaid wrong about her and this is the "only place she feels well". Dad tries to keep it all together but eventually his efforts to save his family end up endangering every one of their lives.
This light-hearted movie took a real dark turn toward the end but never lost his appeal. I thought it had some interesting things to say about home, how we get attached to places and also just how far we will go to take care of the ones we love.
My only complaint is that Vanessa Paradis was not in it.